Origin Myths Research Articles

A view of myths and politics related to Kohomba Kankariya: Some inventive dimension of history

This paper attempts to trace the substantial reality underlying the mythical establishments: the-origin myth, and the concept of gods in the Kohomba kankariya traditional ritual of Sri Lanka. Narrators tend to alter the historical myth known as “Vijaya and Kuveni” after about 1000 years of its available initial mention in the great chronicle of Sri Lanka in weaving the origin myth of the ritual. The Kuveni Asna of 15th century, a creative prose poetical writing, appears as the pioneer modifier of the myth while depicting the traits of a ritual as well, performed for the king Parakramabahu VI (AD 1412–1467). The long-term social political process localised the royal ritual as “Kohomba kankariya” under the intervention of feudal aristocracy promoting a-local godhead. Current paper argues that the composition of the origin myth of the ritual was an action taken upon aristocratic need in order to tune the ritual milieu into “their culture” and this very “stratification of human intelligence” disrupts the universal reality of invocation based on the common human sensation of consolation. Paper applies thematic text analysis and historical analysis in tracing the social political dimensions underlying the myths in Kohomba kankariya. In this sense, the current paper is an attempt to explicate that the myths in Kohomba kankariya-are creative establishments produced by humans in order to achieve their social political goals.

Kapka KassabovaTo the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o The Perfect Nine:The Epic of Gĩkũ̃yũ and Mũmbi Trans. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. New York. New Press. 2020. 240 pages. NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O’s first venture into epic poetry is a triumph of the form, which resounds with the lyrical heartbeat of the Gĩkũyũ people in Kenya as Ngũgĩ chronicles their mythic history. An origin story told in flowing verse narration, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi tells the tale of the Perfect Nine—the ten daughters of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi—who become the mothers of the ten Gĩkũyũ clans. The epic recounts their parents’ efforts to find, from among ninety-nine suitors, the proper partner for each daughter. These efforts lead to a perilous, ogre-filled adventure to the Mountain of the Moon as the daughters and their potential husbands retrace Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi’s original journey to Mũkũruweinĩ, their home. Ngũgĩ retells this epic story from a strongly feminist perspective, with the Perfect Nine being the heroines of their own legend. Ngũgĩ composes a wisdom-dense narrative with a rhythm befitting the swirling motion of mythos: “Now is Now and it is not Now because Time does not stop. / Yesterday is Yesterday and it is not Yesterday because Time did not stop. / Tomorrow is Tomorrow and it is not Tomorrow because Time will not stop.” The pulsing cadence of Ngũgĩ’s writing imitates ripples on the surface of a pond—smooth undulations that carry the reader further and further, deeper and deeper into the story while never forgetting their point of origin in Kenyan mythic tradition. It is this rhythmic progression of the narrative that lends The Perfect Nine a certain dreamlike quality. The story feels both ancient and immediate as the chronicle drifts seamlessly between reverie and suspense. This simultaneous temporality reminds the reader of the history of the Gĩkũyũ people—recorded in ancient tales but still very much alive. This history lives within every verse of the epic, as, along with the fantastical adventures of the Perfect Nine, Ngũgĩ’s epic poem records ancient Kenyan customary practices , such as those ceremonies surrounding a Gĩkũyũ wedding. In this way, The Perfect Nine not only immortalizes the myth of the ten daughters of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi but also acts as a document that preserves Gĩkũyũ cultural traditions and breathes a vibrant gust of passion and verve into Gĩkũyũ history. Ngũgĩ crafts a beautiful retelling of the Gĩkũyũ myth that emphasizes the noble pursuit of beauty, the necessity of personal courage, the importance of filial piety, and a sense of the Giver Supreme—a being who represents divinity, and unity, across world religions. All these things coalesce into dynamic verse to make The Perfect Nine a story of miracles and perseverance; a chronicle of modernity and myth; a meditation on beginnings and endings; and a palimpsest of ancient and contemporary memory, as Ngũgĩ overlays the Perfect Nine’s feminine power onto the origin myth of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya in a moving rendition of the epic form. Alex Crayon University of Oklahoma Kapka Kassabova To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf Press. 2020. 416 pages. EURASIA’S MOST TUMULTUOUS chapters are preserved in the waters of two prehistoric lakes. In 2017 Kapka Kassabova ’s Border examined the cultural conflux of Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria along the latter’s southern border. Her ability to extrapolate historical context and modern implications through the people living and working along the eponymous divide gave the novel an unparalleled spark of life. With her most recent outing, To the Lake, Kassabova shifts her focus to her childhood home of Ohrid, whose namesake, alongside the neighboring Lake Prespa, marks the crossroads of Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia. The changed setting yields a text that feels somehow more autobiographical without detracting from Kassabova’s exceptional characterization. Ohrid and its adjacent lake, Prespa, serve as a thesis to...

Freud between Oedipus and the Sphinx

Freud between Oedipus and the Sphinx MIRIAM LEONARD Areproduction of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s neo-classical painting Oedipus and the Sphinx famously hung over Freud’s couch in his consulting room at Berggasse 19 [figure 1]. Nobody doubts the significance of the figure of Oedipus to the development of Freud’s thought, arion 28.3 winter 2021 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, (1780–1867). Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1808. Oil on canvas. Photo Credit : Scala/ Art Resource, NY. 132 freud between oedipus and the sphinx but the presence of the Sphinx in this picture raises a series of questions about Freud’s interests which have not been as extensively explored. Indeed, this is far from being the only depiction of the Sphinx which graced Freud’s study. A large etching of the Sphinx at Giza was displayed amongst his bookshelves and a terracotta figurine was amongst his most prized objects.1 These representations of the Sphinx testify to Freud’s broader fascination with Egyptian culture—a fascination which, as we have seen, manifests itself both in his writings and his collection of antiquities. Judith Butler and George Steiner have wondered: “what would happen if psychoanalysis were to have taken Antigone rather than Oedipus as its point of departure?”2 I want to reformulate their question to ask, what would happen if Freud had taken the Sphinx rather than Oedipus as his point of departure? With this counterfactual, I hope to deepen the exploration already undertaken in the previous two articles about Egypt as an origin myth for psychoanalysis—an origin both for the development of the self and for the history of humanity. One possibility, suggested by Edward Said in his last work, Freud and the Non European, is that Freud’s turn to Egypt opened psychoanalysis to a less Eurocentric perspective. For Said, Freud’s foregrounding of Egypt and his interest in the crossover of “non-European” and “European ” cultures testified to his openness and his frustration with the nationalist and racist theories which were so prevalent at the end of his life.3 Said’s claims are compelling but as he would have been the first to note, Freud’s Egyptomania could equally be captive to orientalizing fantasies.4 In what follows I trace the evidence for Freud’s fascination with Egypt and, reading it hieroglyphically (as he would invite us to do), I speculate about its possible impacts on psychoanalysis as art and / or science. Ingres’s first version of Oedipus and the Sphinx—the painting whose reproduction Freud displayed—was completed in 1808. Ingres originally painted the picture in Rome where Miriam Leonard 133 he was studying at the French Academy. In common with other students at the academy, Ingres was required to produce figure studies and the original version of this painting was focused on Oedipus and the representation of his bodily form. Ingres had asked his model to use the same pose as the classical statue of Hermes with the Sandal which is displayed in the Louvre. As François de Vergnette writes: “The clarity of the contours, the muted use of chiaroscuro and the slight surface relief given to the figure of Oedipus add an archaic flavor to the picture. This archaism had its roots in Ingres’s taste for Greek vases.”5 But it is the impact of a different Mediterranean culture which can be felt in Ingres’s depiction of Oedipus’ counterpart. While Oedipus embodies the Winckelmannian Hellenic ideal, the Sphinx is represented in all her oriental glory. Ingres painted this image just ten years after Napoleon had lead his troops and “savants” into Egypt. Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign gave rise to a widespread fascination with ancient Egyptian culture and its impact on the arts was immense. In choosing to represent Oedipus in his encounter with the Sphinx, Ingres was able to draw on this new aesthetic of orientalism.6 Even before Napoleon ’s expedition, the Sphinx had become a potent visual representation of the mystery of ancient Egypt and of ancient Egypt as mystery. Ingres reworked this image during the course of his career and gave the Sphinx an ever greater prominence. In Ingres ’s depiction, the Sphinx’s orientalism...

Salt Fish Girl and “Hopeful Monsters”: Using Monstrous Reproduction to Disrupt Science Fiction’s Colonial Fantasies

Abstract The revival of the Frankenstein origin myth has left science fiction’s relationship to colonialism undertheorized. More recent creative interventions have, however, challenged the genre’s colonialist legacy: two works that achieve this are Larissa Lai’s novel Salt Fish Girl (2002) and Hiromi Goto’s short story “Hopeful Monsters” (2004). Using different forms of unruly reproduction—strange births, recurring histories, and eclectic intertextuality—these texts unravel the tangled histories of science fiction and colonialism. Using tropes of repetition and mutation, Lai and Goto trace not a myth of origins but the texture of interwoven histories of gendered and racialized oppression. Monstrous patchworks of texts, these works interrogate the boundaries between science fiction, myth, folklore, and fantasy, showing these generic distinctions to have been buttressed by colonialist discourses.

Arkaik ve Klâsik Hellen Toplumlarının Mekâna Bağlı Köken ve Kuruluş Mitosları

Klâsik Dönem Hellen dünyasının ayırt edici nitelikleri Atina polis'i üzerinden tespit edilse de bu kültürün çerçevesi, Arkaik Dönem Hellen siyasi coğrafyasında bulunan tüm toplumların iletişim dünyası içinde belirlenmiştir. Erken Hellen toplumlarının iletişim dünyasının en önemli ortak birikimi olarak, Homeros'a atfedilen şiirler gösterilebilir ki Hellen siyasi, sosyolojik ve mitolojik hafızasına özgü birçok unsur, nitelikleriyle birlikte ilk defa bu dizelerde kendini gösterir. Konumuz bağlamında, özellikle dizelerde belirlenen mitolojik hafıza önem arz eder. Öyle ki, Hellen toplumları açısından mitolojinin yüklendiği tarihsel rol, burada ve diğer aktarımlarda konu edilen mitolojik kahramanların ya da olayların çoğunlukla siyasal nedenlerle Arkaik ve Klâsik Dönem ozanlarınca yeniden kullanılmasına, ekler görerek yeniden biçimlendirilmesine neden olmuştur. Bu çalışmada; Arkaik ve Klâsik Hellen toplumlarının kuruluş ve köken iddiaları aşamasında yoğunlukla kullanılarak öne çıkarılan mitoslar belirlenecek, toplumların mitoloji üzerinden izlediği diplomasinin iç ve dış politikalardaki etkileri ve sonuçlarına değinilecektir. Son olarak ise, Arkaik Hellen toplumlarının hafızasında olgunlaşmaya başlayan bu geleneğin, Hellenistik Dönem'le birlikte toplumlara kimlik oluşturma ve kültürel bütünlük kurma aşamasında üstlendiği işlevsel rol özetle konu edilecektir.

Hint, Yunan, Sümer ve Türk Mitolojilerinde Tufan Mitinin Kültürel Bellek Açısından Önemi

Mitoloji tarihi dikkatlice incelendiğinde, neredeyse bütün kültürlerde eski düzeni alaşağı edip yeni bir düzen inşa ettiren tufan felâketlerine rastlanır. Tufan ile ilgili söylencelerde tanrısal güç veya güçlerden kaynaklanan bu felâketin sebebi olarak insanın günahkârlığı gösterilir. Burada ilgili dinlerde ve mitolojilerde su arındırıcı bir metafor olarak karşımıza çıkar: Hayat verdiği gibi son derece öldürücü de olabilmesi suyun mitolojik açıdan son derece ambivalan/ikircikli durumunu ortaya koyar. Tufan mitleri, karşılaştırmalı mitoloji ve dinler tarihi açısından bakıldığında daima geçiş dönemlerinin anlatılarıdır ve atlatılmış kıyametler olarak hikâye edilirler. Bu felâketi çok az sayıda 'iyi' insanın atlatabilmesi bütün dünya mitolojilerinde yaygın bir motiftir. Bu çalışmada Hint, Yunan, Sümer ve Türk menşeli tufan anlatıları ele alınırken bir anlamda tufan mitinin mizanseni veya ana omuru ortaya konulmaya çalışılacaktır. Tufan mitinin, ilgili toplulukların travmatik birer dönemlerine işaret ettiği ve tufan sonrası nesiller için birer geriye dönük kıyamet ve dolayısıyla uyarı anlamına geldiği söylenebilir. Bu mitler, bireysel düzeyde erginlenme ile ilgiliyken toplumsal düzeyde belirli dönemler arası geçişler ile ilgilidirler. Buna göre eski düzen yıkılırken yerine yeni bir düzen inşa edilmektedir: Günahkâr ve itaatsiz insanlar yok edilirken geriye yalnızca tanrı kelamına uyan, ahlâk lı ve dindar insanlar kurtulurlar.

A Reflection on the Khasi Myth: Ka Meiramew (Mother Earth)

This paper attempts to give a brief reflection of the concept of Ka Meiramew (Mother Earth) and myth of origin. It also discusses a strong cultural and philosophical tradition. There is also an awakening trend among the tribal scholars, to examine these value judgements in relation to the oral past. Although have a number of myths, this paper covers only one popular creation myth.

Foundations and Foundation Myths of the Troubadours

A review of several origin myths relating to the creation of medieval Occitan lyric poetry. We see a preference for a “great man theory” of origins, though the “great man” may be a fictional woman. Medieval and early Renaissance Occitan authors, including Uc de Saint Circ, Guilhem Molinier, and Jean de Nostredame, used differing origin myths to validate literature in a language that was perceived not to carry the prestige of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin or fifteen- and sixteenth-century French.

Signifier of Kiwi Identity

Contested myths of origin surround one of New Zealand’s best-loved cultural icons, or ‘kiwiana’: a pull-along children’s toy called the Buzzy Bee. This paper clarifies those domains by presenting new information gleaned from Betty Schlesinger, widow of the bee’s inventor. Clarification is important because the Buzzy Bee is, as kiwiana, a material item strongly associated with Kiwi identity. As a Māori word, ‘Kiwi’ is a common, often self-ascribed, term identifying people from Aotearoa New Zealand. In clarifying the Buzzy Bee’s history, this paper adds new information to the knowledge base of what it means to be Kiwi. That knowledge base is enhanced, because this paper notes that the Buzzy Bee was invented and first manufactured here in New Zealand by Betty Schlesinger’s husband Maurice Schlesinger. Betty Schlesinger’s account contrasts more popular and well-known origin myths that have served to cloud the Bee’s definitive history. In clarifying the Buzzy Bee’s genesis using Betty Schlesinger’s narrative, this paper also emphasises the important link between identity, materiality and national identity.

The Coming of the Celts, AD 1860: Celtic Nationalism in Ireland and Wales, by Caoimhín De Barra

Reviewed by: The Coming of the Celts, AD 1860: Celtic Nationalism in Ireland and Wales by Caoimhín De Barra Lisa Weihman (bio) The Coming of the Celts, AD 1860: Celtic Nationalism in Ireland and Wales, by Caoimhín De Barra; pp. xi + 360. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018, $45.00. The myth of a shared Celtic origin in Ireland and Wales during the nineteenth century was a powerful force in the intertwined history of both nations, as Caoimhín De Barra’s beautifully written, deeply researched book, The Coming of the Celts, AD 1860: Celtic Nationalism in Ireland and Wales, brings to light. Using newspaper archives to search for the terms Celt and Celtic, De Barra finds relatively little use of the label prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, when Celtic identity emerges from a hazy origin myth into an ideal vehicle for nationalist aspirations. “Over a twenty-year period, linguistic scholars gave the Celts a sense of prestige, scientists gave them a racial categorization, archaeologists gave them a glorious past, and littérateurs gave them easily identifiable characteristics,” De Barra writes. In response to the repression of the Irish language and the rapid Anglicization of both Wales and Ireland, De Barra argues, Celtic identity “offered a durable foundation upon which to construct a national identity, as well as a sense of a common bond among the other groups in the United Kingdom in the face of England’s growing political, industrial, and demographic might” (28). The relative success of the Welsh in preserving their language and culture during the nineteenth century inspired Irish cultural nationalists and language revivalists to do the same, and the relationship between the Irish and the Welsh during these years is the primary focus of De Barra’s research. To the Irish, the thriving population of Welsh speakers and vibrant Welsh print culture offered a vision of hope. The Society for the [End Page 661] Preservation of the Irish Language, founded in 1876, and the Gaelic League, in 1893, established ties with similar groups in Wales. As De Barra writes, “Many Irish nationalists were enthralled by the example of the Welsh language because they believed that the circumstances faced by the Irish language at the end of the nineteenth century were identical to those faced by the Welsh a century earlier” (39). De Barra convincingly argues that this vision of Welsh success was inaccurate; Wales had never faced the sort of devastation that the Great Famine brought to Ireland, and the proportion of the population who spoke Welsh decreased substantially throughout the nineteenth century. From the Irish point of view, however, the preservation of the Welsh language, music, and literature was a goal Ireland should strive to match. While celebrating a shared if largely invented Celtic identity brought Irish and Welsh language enthusiasts and cultural nationalists into an ongoing conversation about what it meant to be Celtic, there were also cross-cultural barriers beyond the mutual incomprehensibility of the two languages. How the Irish read the Welsh and how the Welsh read the Irish is one of the most compelling aspects of De Barra’s work, grounded in his analysis of contemporary periodicals. The largely Nonconformist population of Wales often associated the Irish with criminality, poverty, and Catholicism; the rise of Catholic nationalism in the ranks of the Gaelic League would provoke similar suspicion of the Welsh by the Irish. De Barra traces the concurrent rise of Home Rule movements in both countries from the 1880s onward, from the rise of the Land League in Ireland to its influence on the Cymru Fydd movement in Wales between 1885 and 1896. De Barra’s central chapters trace the foundation of Pan-Celtic organizations in an era when many pan-nationalist groups were rising out of racial, linguistic, and geographic affinities across Europe, strengthened by the rise of mass literacy throughout the nineteenth century. From the ashes of the short-lived Pan-Celtic Society came Edmund Fournier and Lord Castletown’s Celtic Association, through which Fournier believed “the Celtic love of beauty would save humanity from the soulless excess of the modern world” (115). The Celtic Association promoted regular contact among...

“Light Filtering through Those Shutters”: Joyless Streets, Mnemic Symbols, and the Beginnings of Feminist Film Criticism

This article examines the origin myth of the feminist film journal Close Up, namely, an excursion by its founders Bryher and H.D. to see G. W. Pabst’s Die freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street, 1925) in a small cinema in Montreux, Switzerland. Throughout the essay, I use Joyless Street as a case study to analyze the ways in which theories of trauma can be effectively brought to bear on melodramas of the post–World War I era and, in the process, demonstrate the appeal Pabst’s works held for the Close Up editors, who shared his interest in trauma, psychoanalysis, and healing. By analyzing Joyless Street through the lens of Close Up, I demonstrate how Bryher and H.D. anticipate the development of trauma theory, which emerged in the early 1990s. Unlike traditional, often totalizing, applications of psychoanalysis (which emphasize notions of spectator desire and lack), the Close Up writers’ engagement of psychoanalysis focuses on issues of history, memory, and the response of spectators to historically specific situations. Their theory further suggests that in addition to surrogate fantasy fulfillment, film—in its recurring representation of trauma—might aid in mastering shared cultural symptoms, which women often experienced in isolation. Through their sustained analysis of film melodrama, the Close Up writers demonstrate that the war, beyond its devastating effects on combatants, also impacted the (female) civilian population—resulting in Close Up’s call for a critical film culture that speaks to that experience.

From Xu Bei Hong's “Slave and the Lion” to Shaw's Androcles and the Lion: Shaw's Bridges to Chinese Culture

ABSTRACT This article focuses on how Bernard Shaw's plays build bridges to Chinese culture, through looking at the famous Chinese painter Xu Bei Hong's Slave and the Lion (1924) and Shaw's Androcles and the Lion (1912). Xu's oil painting was created in 1924 in Berlin, where Siegfried Trebitsch's translation of Androcles and the Lion had been staged in November 1912. Much of the message Xu invested in the painting reflected ideas young Chinese intellectuals were gathering from Shaw and his plays, especially concerning negotiations between authority and the individual will within the struggle for survival and resistance to oppression. Xu was part of an intricate network making use of Shaw to advocate social reforms and boost Chinese nationalism. The article examines the coexistence of the Western and Chinese perspectives in the painting to show how Xu dexterously made use of the original myth to provide multiple levels of meanings.

Aztlán: From Mythos to Logos in the American Southwest

This article advances the idea of “Aztlán” as a hybrid border identity that developed over time from ancient myth into a complex mode of social and political ontology. The cultural symbol of Aztec mythology was once the homeland of the Aztec people and eventually served a role in Aztec philosophy, functioning as truth for peoples throughout time, as seen in both Latin American and American philosophy and literature. It also helped the mixed-race Chicano/a population resist complete Americanization into the contemporary period, through the reclamation of original myth into a geopolitical homeland. The theory of “double hybridization,” similar to “double colonization,” must be further assessed and taken into consideration as the natural progression and understanding of Aztlán and border identity.

Dreams of Destiny and Omens of Greatness: Exceptionalism in Ottoman Political and Historical Thought

Abstract This article uses dreams, portents, and prognostications as an entry point into what some scholars have recently called ‘Ottoman exceptionalism’. Drawing on sources in Turkish and Arabic, it traces beliefs about the Ottoman dynasty and empire’s superiority, divine favour, and special role in history from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. I begin with the ‘seeds’ of the topic in the empire’s early years and myths of origin, including a number of dream stories, before moving to full-scale political exceptionalism. Looking closer, I then identify an eschatological strand in the lead-up to the Islamic millennium that centred on the dynasty’s role in the end time. The millennium’s uneventful passing led to the dissolution of this strand but not of ideas about exceptionalism itself, which in later forms turned inward, depicting the empire as ‘eternal’ and projecting its rule to an undetermined future period.

At the Queen’s Hall with E.M. Forster and Jean Laplanche

In E.M. Forster’s novel Howards End, we are introduced to the way in which the characters in the story listen to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. In this article, I draw on the work of the French psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche to suggest that music constitutes an enigmatic cultural message that returns us to the ‘scene of primal seduction’; a myth of human origins that takes the encounter with an enigmatic other as constitutive of human subjectivity. Reading Howards End through the lens of Laplanche, I discuss how Forster’s characters respond to Beethoven’s message and conclude with a brief discussion about issues of inheritance and alterity.

Origin stories: Wonder woman and sovereign exceptionalism

This article approaches the recent Wonder Woman (2017) film as a presentation of the tensions traditionally associated with the paradox of democratic foundations. Steeped in classical mythology, Wonder Woman adapts two origin myths from the Athenian polis: the myth of Pandora and the myth of the heroic colonizing demigod. Through its adaptation of these myths I argue that Wonder Woman offers two competing responses to the democratic paradox of founding. One is exceptionalist, where sovereign interventions by extraordinary ‘super-agents’ like Wonder Woman are justified by their unique origins and identities. The second response subverts this narrative, however, offering a tragic depiction of democratic agency. Through the relationships formed with Diana’s human companions, I argue that Wonder Woman shows the insufficiency of a politics of heroic origins, suggesting agents must continually struggle to establish communities which do not ignore their historical failures or their powers to address these. Wonder Woman therefore provides important imaginative resources for resisting the kinds of seductive, exceptionalist political narrative it also presents.

The Analysis of J.R.R.Toliken’s Ecological Responsibility Consciousness in The Lord of the Rings

J.R.R.Tolkien, a distinguished Oxford University professor who specialized in the study of language development and early medieval literature. He has written famous books like The Hobbits and The Silmarillion, but his literary reputation mainly rests upon his fantasy-romance novel, The Lord of the Rings. Since its publication, the novel has got great popularity among western countries. It was even selected as “the most popular book in history” on line. As Hollywood director Peter Jackson’s film The Lord of the Rings was filmed, a zealous love for “the magic ring” has wiped throughout the world. No matter scholars or common enthusiasm readers both show great passion for this novel. Archetypal analysis and the origin of myth in Middle-earth, fantasy technique etc. have been widely used to review or interpret the text of this novel. Based on the intertextual interpretation of J.R.R.Tolkien’s life experience and the novel, and through the viewpoint of ecological responsibility consciousness this paper attempts to explore Tolkien’s seek of homeland, which reveals Tolkien’s country yearning and furthermore presents his ecological value.

Colonialidade do saber e conflitos de memórias no espaço público

A colonialidade do poder e do saber pode transcender a relação da Europa com os países colonizados, passando a se constituir como um padrão de relações reproduzido em diversos sistemas políticos. O eurocentrismo é uma perspectiva cognitiva-epistêmica não exclusiva dos europeus e nem do período colonial, pertencendo também aos que tenham sido educados pela sua hegemonia. Este relato de pesquisa tem por objetivo abordar a concepção e organização de um Memorial em uma comunidade quilombola, observando-se o processo de construção da memória coletiva em torno de um mito fundacional de origem. Na metodologia seguiu-se a abordagem qualitativa utilizando o método da história oral. Os dados foram analisados por meio da análise de conteúdo temática valendo-se do software Atlas Ti na codificação, categorização e monitoração da produção de sentidos. Observa-se que durante a construção do Memorial determinados grupos sociais dominantes utilizam o poder simbólico, social e político para fazer prevalecer sua representação de passado numa perspectiva epistemológica eurocêntrica, evitando a polissemia de vozes. O guiamento do Memorial provoca, porém, um conflito de memórias a partir de relatos testemunhais que subvertem a temporalidade histórica da escravidão, imputando novas formas identitárias ao processo de construção da memória.

Natur als Protagonistin von Dantes Inferno. Von Erdbeben, Baumseelen und Tränenflüssen

Until today the extensive Dante research has rarely dealt with the infernal landscape constructed by the author even though the punitive effects of the four elements fire, water, earth and air are central to the text. This article considers to what extent the hostile nature of hell determined the construction of the first Cantica, even serving as the main protagonist. After starting with the creation of hell, its geological and meteorological conditions will be analyzed. A special focus here is on the suicides, who, through their transformation into plants, not only become part of the natural system themselves, but also refer to the Greek term »hyle« by their designation as »selva« and thus become a primordial matter. The hydrography of the inferno is also considered. Based on the different manifestations of the rivers of the underworld, the question of their terrestrial source is finally examined. Dante's geological and hydrographic systems are based on their own myths of origin. This article identifies scientific models of transmission in both myths. The first, elaborated by Albertus Magnus, explained the various effects of earthquakes, and the other accounted for cartography and negotiations of the geographical center of the earth.

Interpretation of the myth about Orpheus and Eurydice in Dino Buzzati’s “Poema a fumetti”

The article briefly describes Dino Buzzati’s biography and his creative path, like one of the most important Italian writer of the second half of the 20th century. Historical preconditions for the emergence of such a literary work as “Poema a fumetti” are examined, exact genre of the given artistic text, it means the genre of the graphic poem, is determined and the main features of every particular genre are described. Compositional analysis of the poem is carried out, main themes touched by Dino Buzzati are also described, the author’s point of view on the key questions of existential character (life and death, its sense, world order, etc.) is explained and comprehended. In this article a comparative analysis of the classical myth about Orpheus and Eurydice and its interpretation in “Poema a fumetti” is conducted. Main differences between the original myth and the poem are revealed. It is found that the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of the most popular and it was used in various spheres of world art (in literature, painting, music, sculpture and cinema).